I should think that any observation of a crow taking prey with its feet
would be very well worth documenting in a very thorough and detailed
way. I have never seen this, but -some 40 years ago- I believed I saw a
raven carry a young (dead) California Ground Squirrel in its feet.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this behavior is
generally known, even in the Corvids (who I'm sure will have their own
Web page shortly). The story with shrikes is a bit different. I have
twice seen Northern Shrikes carry birds in their feet. But just to
check, I scanned Tom Cade's classic piece on this species in the sixth
annual Living Bird (1967). He says that Northerns not only carry prey in
their feet, but that they regularly grab living birds in their feet.
They don't do this with small mammals, however, because they would get
bitten; these they kill with their beaks, THEN often carry them off in
their feet. A very quick peruse of Bent turned up nothing about either
shrike species carrying prey in their feet, but it must be there!
Everything else is.

And while we're here, how about Willets carrying their young in their
feet (actually between their legs)? That's in the literature somewhere,
but I don't think it's generally accepted. Many years ago I had a very
good student watching nesting Willets at Malheur. Without having read of
this unique behavior, she reported to me one day that she had seen an
adult Willet move one or more small young this way! And remember, the
professional ornithology community refused for nearly a century to
believe that Sand Grouse water their young by bringing them water soaked
into their belly feathers. That's another one that Cade sorted out.

Steven G. Herman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia WA 98505
(360) 866-6000, ext.6063
943-5751 (home)
hermans at elwha.evergreen.edu